Legal protection for people who unlock their mobile phones for use on other networks expired last weekend. According to the claims of major U.S. wireless carriers, unlocking a phone bought after January 26 without your carrier's permission violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act whether the phone is under contract or not. In a way, this is not as bad as it sounds. In other ways, it's even worse.

Facebook's Graph Search has certainly caused quite a stir since it was first announced two weeks ago. We wrote earlier about how Graph Search, still in beta, presents new privacy problems by making shared information discoverable that previously was hard, if not impossible, to find at a large scale. Some unwanted search results come from associations with friends and family -- and are therefore out of your control. We urge Facebook to fix this problem by letting people opt out.

EFF Updates

After years of litigation, it appears Stephanie Lenz may have a chance to tell her story to a jury. Back in 2007, you’ll remember, she posted a video to YouTube of her son dancing and running around with Prince's “Let's Go Crazy” playing in the background. Now Judge Jeremy Fogel has issued a ruling in the case that has sent contradictory signals on the future of fair use under the DMCA.

Twitter has released its second semi-annual transparency report, which details every user data demand, censorship order, and copyright takedown request that the micro-blogging site received in the second half of 2012. As with Google's recent transparency report, there was a clear increase in government demands for user data, with the United States leading by far.

Good news from Colombia, where the Constitutional Court has struck down a sweeping copyright enforcement law because Congress had fast tracked the bill and overstepped various legislative procedures. The Court also ruled on the constitutionality of the law itself, overruling provisions against the retransmission of TV content and signals over the Internet as well as its language on technological protection measures.

One year ago this month, Internet users of all ages, races, and political stripes participated in the largest protest in Internet history. Congress was flooded with millions of emails and phone calls to demand they drop the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)—a dangerous bill that would have allowed corporations and the govenrment to censor large parts of the Web. But the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and the fight for Internet freedom continues. Here’s a look at the top five issues SOPA activists should focus on next.

In the countries that comprise the “Gulf States,” citizens are increasingly taking to social media to air their grievances against government officials, and are also increasingly being arrested, detained, or harassed for it.

The FBI had to rewrite the book on its domestic surveillance activities in the wake of last January's landmark Supreme Court decision in United States v. Jones. But if you want to see the two memos describing how the FBI has reacted to Jones -- and the new surveillance techniques the FBI is using beyond GPS trackers -- you’re out of luck. Though the FBI won’t release the memos, we do have some information from other sources on the surveillance techniques federal agents are already using.

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We created some digital shwag to celebrate Internet Freedom Day -- the one year anniversary of the Internet-wide blackout protests that killed the censorship bills SOPA and PIPA. Check out these images, designed to be used as Twitter headers.

Since last July, hundreds of ordinary citizens have helped MuckRock and EFF file records requests to map the deployment of drones across the country. As MuckRock prepares to close the 2012 installment of this project, users have a last opportunity for their request to be included in the first year's results.

Announcements

Campus Party is a week-long, 24-hour-a-day technology festival and conference that brings together bloggers, activists, hackers, and more. EFF Activism Director Rainey Reitman keynoted on January 30 and will be in attendance for the remainder of the conference.January 28-February 3, 2012Sao Paulo, Brazil

EFF takes Austin for the annual South by Southwest festival. Senior Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann will speak at the event titled “Legal Bootcamp for Mobile Developers.“ Director for International Freedom of Expression Jillian York will speak at the event titled "Cryptowars Déjà Vu: Controlling Exports of Tech." More talks to be announced soon.March 8-17, 2013Austin, TX